The Little Differences
by sctwilightvampwolfgal
Summary: None of Alix's friendships fall into the completely same category, but she loved each friendship just the same anyway. *Written for Alix Appreciation Week.*


Being new to the superhero team both had its perks and its serious letdowns. She's half positive that it will take some time to get the kind of flow that the others have or their kind of in sync nature.

Firefly tries though and despite whatever may surprise those unaware of her attention to detail as far as races go, she can be quite observant though solo patrols were always better spent checking up on a classmate and seeing if they recognized her. So far, she'd tried Marinette who freaked out spectacularly at first as if there was an actual Akuma, Adrien who was about as nervous and the first one she visited on a whim, Kim who just doesn't like her disrupting his sleep no matter how famous or popular she is, Chloe who basically tried to throw her pride at a superhero visiting her while demanding to see Ladybug instead, and Max just the other week when she'd last visited someone, who asked rather point blank whether they knew each other as something about the likelihood of her visiting him as a random civilian seemed less than likely especially since she knew his name. She'd vowed to herself not to visit his house again due to his hypothesis and endless stream of calculated questions like she'd vowed to never visit Chloe's hotel as Firefly again, because that one time left her in a ball of anger that was hard to shake off.

She'd probably visit Adrien and Kim some more however, because she actually got along pretty well with them suited up, and it had been fun. She'd already visited Kim twice more since that first time, and every time he pretended to be angry with her for disrupting his sleep even though she could have sworn the one time that he was wide awake before hand anyway.

Either way, Firefly wasn't the least observant person on the team and despite the fun of solo patrols and visiting classmates, she loved patrols with Cat Noir the best. "Race you to the Eiffel Tower! May the best bug win." Firefly teased.

"I'm not a bug. That's already unfair, Firefly." Cat Noir grumbled, but he was pretty quick on his feet. Firefly had to focus on trying to get to the Eiffel Tower, the city nearby to avoid actually missing rooftops, and flying to get there. Cat Noir still beat her by half a second.

"Rematch?" Alix tried with a bright smile on her face despite everything, despite the exhaustion letting smoke tremble and fall from her lips, and despite how sweaty she'd become. Definitely racing either Ladybug or Cat Noir or them both the once or twice that she'd gotten it to happen while on patrol with them was a blast and a serious workout.

"Don't be a sore loser." There was no bark to his bite, and she didn't mind at all that he was just teasing her. Alix had never expected to discover a friendship with either Ladybug or Cat Noir in her lifetime, and yet since becoming a superhero, she was getting there slowly, and with Rena too! Firefly tried to race the fox too, but they were both a little newer to the game and so it wasn't as challenging or fun as with Cat Noir and Ladybug though Rena was fast and so, so good at racing already. It was still fun, but she'd still pick racing Cat Noir and Ladybug first anyday.

"I'm not that bad of one." Alix pretended to grumble as she leaned against Cat Noir's side, "And besides, I've beaten you before, so don't get cocky." And she had, it was a challenge whether she lost or won against him, but she had beaten him before.

"Sure." Cat Noir smiled at it, and Firefly basked in the budding friendship that meant more to her than perhaps he even knew.

* * *

"You and Kim are racing again?" Alya asked her as if she couldn't see the point of it though Alix could slightly attest to that since she'd became much, much faster since becoming a superhero, mostly just because she was always trying to push herself as hard as she could to get better. She couldn't solely rely on her superhero status for speed and agility; she needed to train and work hard to get there herself.

"Yeah, he challenged me to another race, but I might as well savor every victory that I can get." She shrugged, not minding at all that some of her confidence came from being a totally awesome superhero. It had done wonders on her ego and self esteem, and sometimes the crowd following on places like the LadyBlog really caught her eye. That was probably quite good at bolstering confidence most of the time though some followers of the blog weren't particularly nice either. You'd have that, but Alix read it all with a grain of salt, trying to ignore it though certainly, all the positivity even among the bad built up her confidence beyond where she knew it could go.

"Confident, are we?" Kim grumbled, but Alix knew racing Kim like the back of her hand, had even done it as Firefly a few times though Kim always lost then. Their races had certainly become less even and less common since she became Firefly.

"Yeah." Alix beamed, finding the starting line, and despite how much she was going to pulverize Kim today, good knowing him, she really did think of him as one of her oldest friends. They'd always had this sort of strange, semi-close relationship, and their friendship had became full of more and more challenges and dares as time went on, but was only strengthened as if forged of some indestructible metal.

Alix didn't mind, and Kim certainly didn't mind. They were though a marvel to some of the adults as well as some of their friends in their life that for the life of them couldn't figure out how their friendship worked.

Neither one minded; they'd still go on being close and fighting as if they were much younger than they actually were and trying to see who was more athletic or who could do this or that. Alix used to be on an even playing field with Kim; sometimes she won, sometimes he won, but now she won a good ninety five percent of the time or more, so today, she was confident that he'd eat her dust.

At least, she'd be kind to him afterward as he wallowed in his defeat, but there'd always be another race, another day, another time.

* * *

"So, Adrien again?" Alix sighed as she curled up on Marinette's bed.

"Yes." Alya admitted simply as Marinette's face turned an interesting shade of pink as she answered.

"U-Uh, y-yeah." It had admittingly came out of the blue that Alix asked, but usually Marinette sleepovers had at least some talk of Adrien thrown in. Not that she minded, but still trying to win guys' affection wasn't really something that Alix did or rather that she didn't do well.

She counted Mylene and Alya as the most successful or the most likely to balance love lives and whatever else since they both actually had boyfriends, but Alix doubted that either of them had to balance being a superhero like she did. Alix just didn't see where she'd even begin to find time to properly date someone, and sometimes she wondered if Marinette really had enough time to date anyone either with how late she tended to be, meaning that likely she was almost as busy as Alix was.

She'd support her though. That's what friends did as far as she was aware, and she and Marinette were good friends, not best friends as Kim was Alix's, and Marinette was Alya's best friend, but they were still good friends in general.

Admittingly after another half-botched attempt to get Adrien and Marinette together in a day failed, they switched to more interesting topics: sports which Alix brought up, fashion which Marinette talked up, journalism-primarily the LadyBlog and Alya's boyfriend which the young reporter brought up, carefully intercepted with Mylene talking about her boyfriend, and sometimes Alix wondered if she was the least mushy girl in the world.

At the very least though, she had her friends through thick and thin; she didn't mind being the only one to not really talk about boys or romance. Honestly, they loved her just the same for it. She loved her friends just the same though surely, 'I love you,' hadn't crossed her lips for them to hear due to her being a little uncomfortable with mushy stuff anyway, but she knew that they loved her back too.

Nothing was better than a day hanging out with friends, and Alix would definitely not deny that one.


End file.
